The present invention is directed generally to paintball guns; and, more particularly, to a self-aligning multi-part paintball gun barrel assembly.
Pneumatic paintball guns launch fluid-filled projectiles by controlling the release of compressed gas from the gun. The fluid-filled projectiles, variously denominated as shooting capsules, marking pellets, and paintballs (hereinafter generically referred to as xe2x80x9cpaintballsxe2x80x9d) are generally made of a fragile shell filled with biodegradable xe2x80x9cpaint.xe2x80x9d When a competitor or other object is hit with a paintball, the shell ruptures and the paint is released onto and marks the target, thereby providing evidence of the hit.
As can be appreciated, it is desirable to have a pneumatic paintball gun that provides accurate and consistent aiming. However, this has proved somewhat problematic in the prior art due, at least in part, on variations in the paintballs themselves. Although the shell of a paintball ideally has a diameter of 0.68 inches, paintballs in practice have varying diameters. Real paintballs typically vary from between 0.65 to 0.70 inches, due to variations among manufacturers and other factors, such as ambient weather conditions.
Separately, it has proven desirable to have paintball gun barrels formed of two or more pieces connected in series that may be disassembled in order to make storage and transport easier. Because such arrangements typically have two parts, a shank portion that attaches to the paintball gun body and a muzzle portion that attaches to the distal end of the shank, these arrangements are commonly referred to as xe2x80x9ctwo-piecexe2x80x9d paintball gun barrels. When the two pieces of the barrel are designed to be connected via a simple threaded connection, as is typical, one problem that commonly arises is providing good alignment between the bores of the two portions. This is due to the very tight dimensional control needed to size the features appropriately and to keep the bores concentric with the threads on the mating ends of the two barrel pieces. If the two bores are not concentric where they meet, a lip may be formed in the combined barrel bore that has a tendency to rupture the skin of the paintballs while the paintballs are being fired through the barrel, leading to obviously poor performance and user dissatisfaction.
The present invention is directed to a paintball gun barrel assembly. The paintball gun barrel assembly includes a muzzle portion that removably couples to a shank assembly. The shank assembly is adapted to mate to a paintball gun body and has an internal first bore therethrough and a first angled surface on an output end thereof substantially concentric with the first bore thereat. The muzzle portion has a second bore, an output end, and an input end; the input end having a second angled surface substantially concentric with the second bore. Mating the muzzle to the shank assembly causes the respective angled surfaces to inter-engage and thereby causes the first bore at the output end of the shank assembly to substantially align with the second bore at the input end of the muzzle. Thus, the shank assembly and the muzzle are self-aligning with respect to each other.
In some embodiments, the shank assembly includes an insert housing with a first removable bore tube insert. The insert housing is adapted to mate to the paintball gun body and has a longitudinal internal passage. The bore tube is adapted to removably fit in the internal passage of the insert housing. The first angled surface and the first bore are associated with the bore tube. With the first bore tube disposed in the insert housing and the insert housing mated to the muzzle portion, engaging the first angled surface with the second angled surface causes the first bore at the output end of the first bore tube to substantially align with the second bore at the input end of the muzzle portion. Thus, in these embodiments, the bore tube portion of the shank assembly and the muzzle are self-aligning with respect to each other.
In other embodiments of the present invention, a plurality of different size bore tubes may be used, each having a different internal bore diameter but the same outer dimensions. With such an arrangement, a user may readily change the effective bore diameter of shank assembly to accommodate different sizes of paintballs. The user need only remove the muzzle by unscrewing it from the shank assembly, slide the first bore tube out from the insert housing, insert a new bore tube into the insert housing, and reattach the muzzle. Note that no special alignment process is needed, as the muzzle and bore tubes are self-aligning. Further, the entire barrel bore size change process can be accomplished without removing the insert housing from the gun body.